Gaming machines which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate the primary or base game. In many of these gaming machines, the award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
In such known gaming machines, the amount of the wager made on the base game by the player may vary. For instance, the gaming machine may enable the player to wager a minimum number of credits, such as one credit (e.g., one penny, nickel, dime, quarter or dollar) up to a maximum number of credits, such as five credits. This wager may be made by the player a single time or multiple times in a single play of the primary game. For instance, a slot game may have one or more paylines and the slot game may enable the player to make a wager on each payline in a single play of the primary game. Thus, it is known that a gaming machine, such as a slot game, may enable players to make wagers of substantially different amounts on each play of the primary or base game ranging, for example, from 1 credit up to 125 credits (e.g., 5 credits on each of 25 separate paylines). This is also true for other wagering games, such as video draw poker, where players can wager one or more credits on each hand and where multiple hands can be played simultaneously.
Secondary or bonus games are also known in gaming machines. The secondary or bonus games usually provide an additional award to the player. Secondary or bonus games usually do not require an additional wager by the player to be activated. Secondary or bonus games are generally activated or triggered upon an occurrence of a designated triggering symbol or triggering symbol combination in the primary or base game. For instance, a bonus symbol occurring on the payline on the third reel of a three reel slot machine may trigger the secondary bonus game. Part of the enjoyment and excitement of playing certain gaming machines is the occurrence or triggering of the secondary or bonus game (even before the player knows how much the bonus award will be). In other words, obtaining a bonus event and a bonus award in the bonus event is part of the enjoyment and excitement for players.
Player tracking systems are also known. Player tracking systems enable gaming establishments to recognize the value of customer loyalty through identifying frequent customers and rewarding those customers for their patronage. The cumulative history of a particular player's gaming activity, which is included in a player profile, enables gaming establishments to target individual players with direct marketing promotions or customized compensation plans. In existing player tracking systems, a player is issued a player identification card which has an encoded player identification number that uniquely identifies the player. Player tracking on gaming devices such as slot machines, is typically accomplished with a card reader mounted to the gaming device. When the player is at a gaming device, the player inserts the card into the card reader. The card reader reads the player identification number from the player tracking card and communicates information regarding the player's subsequent gaming activity through a network to a central computer. Based on this communicated information or data, the gaming establishment classifies each player and provides one or more of such players certain benefits based on these classifications.
One known benefit provided by such player tracking systems includes providing a bonus event to a group of players that have their player tracking card inserted into a gaming device (i.e., carded players). Such bonus events offer the players incentives, such as opportunities to win one or more awards, in exchange for the players' patronage at the gaming device and/or at the gaming establishment. Generally, a bonus controller or central server in association with the player tracking system selects a designated winning player from the group of carded players to win one of the awards associated with the bonus event. In one known bonus event, the award is provided to a randomly determined player chosen from all of the carded players. In such bonus events, the award may be a randomly determined amount and/or provided at a randomly determined time. In other such bonus events, the bonus controller or central server enables the group of carded players to participate in a game, such as a Bingo game, wherein the designated winning players are provided the award associated with the bonus event.
While rewarding carded players is popular amongst players and encourages participation in such player tracking systems, a number of issues exist with these known player tracking systems. First, participating in such player tracking systems does not enable the players to input choices or determinations that will affect the award (or the players' chances of winning the award). Additionally, since the bonus controller or central server designates a winning player, an award amount and/or a time at which the award will be provided to the winning player in association with these player tracking systems, certain players may believe that a significant amount of time and money are required to win the award. This may discourage certain players from playing a gaming device, especially if those players have a limited amount of money to play with or a limited amount of time to play.
There is a continuing need to provide new and different gaming machines and gaming systems as well as new and different ways to provide awards to players including bonus awards.